Bentley archives

Land Rovers

We guarantee your car will be fixed right, on time, and within budget.

That
is a common statement in the auto repair world.It sounds great, but how realistic is it? Auto repair is one of the top sources of consumer complaint, with most complaints being repairs that are not right, not on time, not on budget, or some combination of the three. Which is off base - the repairs or the expectations?

In
my opinion, the requirements to complete a job can only be known once the car
has been dismantled enough to fully understand what’s needed and how much time
and material will ben required. The hard truth is, we are in the business of
repairing things, and just as in repairing people, there can always be
surprises and complications.

Motorists
often misunderstand what service professionals can know. For example, we look at a car with worn
tires and we say, new tires are $xxx.It
seems simple to price out tires, mounting, and balancing.But what if the tires are dismounted and one
of the rims turns out to be cracked?

Suddenly
we have a $500 complication – a new rim is needed.We can’t put the broken rim back on the car
because it’s unsafe, and the motorist is left with no choice but to buy a new
rim.

Most
shops would have quoted a set of tires without any teardown at all.And they would be very likely to have a
customer relations problem when the broken rim was discovered.This is not a common occurrence – 99% of tire
repairs proceed smoothly.But it can and does happen.

The
question is, what can mechanics do about it?In
my opinion we start by setting the correct expectation.We tell people that tires are $xxx, but there
could be surprises.The rim is one
example; as cars get more complex the service complications become more
numerous and more common.

You
don’t get a promised cure at a guaranteed price at the doctor’s office. You may pay x dollars for a certain treatment, but there's no guarantee that's all you need to be cured. You may need a lot more. You may be incurable. Why is
car repair different?It’s not, but
people mistakenly assume it is. To a large extent that’s because mechanics set
unattainable expectations and then they allow themselves to be painted in an
unfavorable light for not living up to an impossible standard.

The
way we correct that is by being clear what we can control in the offered
service, and what we can’t.Tires are a
commodity; we can quote the price for different brands.Mounting is a standard service too; we can
quote time to mount tires on the rims we see.Most of the time, that’s all that’s involved in a basic tire job. But
when we give the motorist those figures we have a duty to inform them of the
possible complications.Some will say,
what’s the worst case?That’s impossible
to answer most of the time.In medicine
the worst case is, you die.In car
repair the worst case is, you need a new car.

99.9%
of the time those dire complications never come to pass.But people get old and die, and so do
cars.Treatment and service outcomes will not always be
good.The best we can do as service
managers is to disclose what we can, and paint a realistic picture.

Doesn’t
the customer always have the last word?That can be a misconception.Take
the example of the broken wheel rim.Once discovered, we cannot undo the discovery, nor can we always retrace the steps to get there.The customer may say “put it back like it
was” but sometimes we can’t. The forces to mount and dismount the tire may turn a cracked
rim into a cleanly broken one.There may
be no path but forward, and the only choice the motorist has is to buy a new or
used wheel rim.Using the rim he arrived
with may simply not be an option.

We
may take one thing apart for repair, only to see another broken thing beside
it.If that broken thing is a possible
safety hazard, we place ourselves at risk if we do not fix it, so the customer
in that case does not have the ability to decline a repair that would
compromise safety. They can of course halt the whole job and tow the car away,
but that does not do them much good.The
newly discovered safety hazard becomes part of the current repair cost, no
matter who does it.

The
only options then are abandoning the car, fixing it now, or fixing it
later.At one time cars were simple, and
“fix it myself” was an option for many owners but with today’s need for
dedicated test computers and special tools it’s a rare owner who has that
option.

Here’s
the hard truth:Taking a car apart to
evaluate damage may render it inoperative until fixed. Hospitals warn patients
in advance when they undertake risky procedures.Those of us in the auto service business have
a responsibility to do the same.

Another
common situation is the multi step repair.Here’s an example:A car comes in
with an inoperative oxygen sensor, and the check engine light is on.We see the failed sensor and replace it.A week later the light is on again.This time the newly repaired oxygen sensor is
sniffing an out of range condition, and we repair that next.It was not possible to see repair #2 without
the prior completion of repair #1.Whenever we repair engine lights we always warn motorists that more than
one round may be needed because there are a thousand things that can illuminate
that simple light, and they may reveal themselves one by one.

If
this sounds complex, costly, and scary, I agree!Yet it is the world we live in. Some motorists would accuse me of making excuses in this essay, to which I would ask: Do you say that to your doctor? Medical treatment and car repair are the two services most of us buy with some regularity. Medicine is notoriously unpredictable in its outcomes, and costs have skyrocketed in recent years. Car repair costs have risen too, but to a much lesser degree, and I submit that our outcomes are often more predictable. The fact is, service is more complex than most people know, and the best we can do is predict what will happen "most of the time."

I've explained this to people, only to have them say, "A good mechanic won't have those problems. It's the incompetent people that are the problem!" Competence is a big issue in the auto repair field, and in the absence of standards and certification, a qualified tech is hard to find. But the thing is, the most competent mechanic in the world still can't see inside your car without taking it apart. None of us have x-ray vision. Surprises and complications happen to the best of us. To say otherwise is to deny reality.

From
the shop’s perspective, our duty is to keep our training up to date and make
sure we have the latest tools for the jobs we undertake.We need to use our best abilities to diagnose
vehicles, and report our findings promptly and clearly.We need to be at the top of our game, and do
our level best to get good outcomes.At
the same time, we have to be clear to our clients with respect to what may go
wrong and why, and what we can do.

That is particularly true for a shop like ours, where we specialize in difficult jobs, and may of the cars we work on are referrals from other shops. The "easy fixes" have already been tried, without success. How does one estimate what it will take to go forward to the end? Many times, we can't. We can only price each step as we take it.

Often we take step 1 without even knowing what step 3 might be, or if there will be a step 4 or 5. We have to be flexible and figure a path as we go. Medicine and other complex diagnostic processes work in a similar manner. You do a test, and that leads to another test, and a treatment, and eventually - you hope - to a fix or cure.

Cars
are complex and service is specialized.Not every mechanic can fix every car.In a big shop like hours there are techs who specialize in certain
brands (like BMW,) and others who specialize in certain procedures (like
convertible tops.)Knowing what we know,
and what we don’t, is always a challenge and an exercise in humility.

(c) 2015 John Elder Robison

John Elder Robison is the general manager of J E Robison Service Company, celebrating 30 years of independent Rolls-Royce, Land Rover, BMW, Jaguar, and Mercedes restoration and repair in Springfield, Massachusetts. John is a longtime technical consultant to the cr clubs, and he’s owned and restored many fine machines. Find him online at www.robisonservice.com or in the real world at 413-785-1665

Reading this article will make you smarter, especially when it comes to car stuff. So it's good for you. But don't take that too far - printing and eating it will probably make you sick.

1 comment:

You're right John, it's a very common statement in auto repair world but never happen true. Most of repair centers assure to fix our car on time and within budget but does it really happen? I don't think so. From my own experience, I can say it happens very rarely. Few years earlier I was much more tensed for getting a good service center for my car. I tried some good centers but didn't get satisfaction and lastly I asked one of my friend about it. As suggested by him, I prefer Bimmer Service for my car servicing from last few years and it's really good one. I would also like to visit your service center to experience your service. Good blog!

We are open from 8-5, Monday through Friday. There is a key drop in the front garage door for people who leave cars after hours.

We are New England's leading four-star authorized Bosch Car Service facility. Owner John Robison is a technical consultant to the Rolls Royce and Bentley owner clubs, the Land Rover club, and the BMW and Mercedes clubs. We're tech inspectors for the Porsche Club of America for regional track events. John's writing appears in many automotive magazines.